


Third Shift

by Silex



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fast Food, Gen, Humor, Late at Night, McDonald's, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 09:49:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20062045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: You get all sorts of strange people coming in during the night shift at the most popular fast food chain there is, but some are more strange than others.





	Third Shift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).

> There was a prompt in this exchange: Fast Food Employee On The Night Shift & Overexcited Time Traveler. How could I resist?

“Mike, you’ve got to see this,” Joanne hissed under her breath as the door opened and strangest customer she’d ever seen walked into the place. Third shift, literally seconds before they closed the doors and switched to drive-through only and the first real crazy that she’d ever seen came in.

“Is it Benjamina?” Mike asked from somewhere in the freezer, sounding amazingly unconcerned, “She usually comes in around now. First time she’s hit us up this year.”

‘Hit us up’, was not a phrase that Joanne found reassuring, especially if this was Benjamina because she didn’t like the look of them one bit.

“How am I supposed to know?” Joanne whispered, dreading the moment that the customer stopped just standing in the door and came forward to make place their order.

_Her_ order, Joanne decided. The huge powdered wig combined with how tall the person was had thrown her off, but the dress with all its layers and ruffles made her think the person was a woman. The makeup on the other hand made her think drag queen. Electric green, eyeshadow, eyelashes done up to look like the wings of an iridescent blue butterfly and blush could hardly be called blush if it was the color blue that only toothpaste seemed to come in.

The customer, possibly Benjamina, smiled, bright white teeth made all the more dazzling by her lipstick, the same color as her eyeshadow. She reached between some of the ruffles of her dress and pulled out -

Joanne had no idea what it was. Her first thought was a gun because of the initial shape, its silvery blue color and her own expectations, but then the thing spread out into a sort of asterisk shape. There was a faint clicking and the thing lifted into the air and began to hover around the woman’s wig, weaving back and forth.

The mystery woman clapped her hands and the thing froze in midair a few inches from her face.

“Hi everyone,” she spoke in a pleasant, even tone, like the narrator of some documentary, oddly appropriate given what she said next, “Benjamina Ladybird here with another turn of the century culinary adventure. To celebrate my three millionth ‘like’ I’m revisiting a fan favorite, and a favorite of mine as well, to have some genuine, traditional American comfort food at McDonald’s!”

“It’s Benjamina,” Joe glanced over her shoulder, hoping that Mike would show up. He was a manager after all, he got paid to deal with stuff like this. This was not what she’d signed up for when she’d agreed to be put on the third shift, even if the pay was much better and the customers were far fewer.

The only response was the sound of boxes being moved around in the freezer. Of all the times for Mike to decide to take inventory it had to be now. Never mind that usually this was the perfect time to see what they were out of, what they had too much of and what had been misplaced.

Benjamina started forward, the hovering asterisk darting forward to weave back and forth in front of the menu, “Since this is a special occasion I’m going to let the viewers vote on what we try today.”

Joanne nodded, uncertain of what she was supposed to say to that, if she was supposed to say anything at all. The asterisk passed over her head several times, and each time she flinched, fighting the urge to duck. The last thing she wanted to do was make any sudden movements and provoke a crazy person.

Benjamina’s eyelashes fluttered so hard it looked like they might take off and join the asterisk in examining the menu.

“Good choice,” she nodded, talking enthusiastically to herself, “Oh, and a classic too. You’re right – I should clarify for anyone new to the channel – all the food here is not just organic, but natural. The meats in the burgers actually do come from real cows that eat grass and the fish are caught, out of the ocean, by people. But the vegetables are especially fascinating – they’re grown in the ground and exposed to a natural day-night cycle. The colors might look a little dull to you all at home, but this is the heyday of organic food production. Synthetics are used, mostly as color and flavor enhancers, but you’re not going to see nutro-wafers as an ingredient here.”

When Benjamina’s eyes went wide, revealing that she had contact lenses that matched her makeup, the left eye unnatural blue, the right equally unnatural green, Joanne looked away. Seemingly unaware of the effect she was having Benjamina put her hands on the counter and leaned forward with a toothpaste commercial smile.

“Hi, welcome to McDonald’s. Can I take your order?” Joanne muttered, hoping that if she stuck to the script it would all be over faster.

“Of course!” The crazy woman rubbed her hands together excitedly, somehow managing to look Joanne right in the eye despite her best efforts, “We’re getting the quarter-pounder with extra cheese, I love that cheerful annatto color, and a filet-o-fish with a packet of barbeque sauce on the side, a call back to the ever popular fusion food episode last year. Oh and for a special treat an apple pie and a small vanilla ice cream. Yes, that’s right, the national dessert of SeaCity12, but you’ve never seen it like this!”

Each time she mentioned an item the asterisk hovered in front of it as though to emphasize her choice.

“Do you want to add –” Joanne caught herself, the woman had already asked for an apple pie, “Fries or a drink?”

“Yes!” Benjamina applauded and the asterisk spun in a figure eight, “A small fries – if we’re lucky one of the fries will have a dark spot on it – sometimes that’s from uneven heating, other times it’s a bit of skin from the potato. Either way a mark of quality, evidence that the vegetables were naturally grown rather than lab produced and cooked in actual hot oil rather than air heated. We’re well before the time of Thermocons and Auto-synths here! Oh and we’re definitely getting a soda. Easily the most fun part of dining in a turn of the century fast food restaurant.”

Half watching the woman for any unexpected moves, Joanne punched her order into the computer, “That’ll be…”

Benjamina was already holding out a handful of coins, the asterisk hovering protectively over them.

Of course, like all crazies she was paying in change and expected Joanne to count it out for her, except these coins were like nothing she’d ever seen before. Gold in color they had a bearded man on one side and a fat deer on the other.

“Mike!” Joanne called out, “You’re going to have to help me here.”

“Just give her change like she gave you a fifty and save the receipt. I’ll fix the difference when I’m done in here.”

Hand shaking, Joanne took the coins, noticing that Benjamina’s nails matched her eyes, the right side green, the left blue, except when Joanne made the mistake of looking up Benjamina’s left eye was green and the right was blue.

Joanne shook her head and took the woman’s money, slipping it into the bottom of the till and giving the change that Mike had told her to.

The asterisk followed the movement of her hands uncomfortably closely the whole time, Benjamina helpfully narrating.

“Yes, this is genuine paper money – hard currency was still popular in this time period, though virtual credits were gaining in popularity. I love that paper is hard money when,” Benjamina took a dollar and held it up to the asterisk waving it back and forth, “And of course I know you all want to look at the coins to see if we got anything special. The sentimentality craze is just getting started, commemorative coins regularly coming into circulation. But first let’s get our beverage!”

Benjamina took the cup with a flourish and hurried over to the soda machine and began to talk enthusiastically at it.

“You’re probably baffled by the limited choices here, especially given how many dispensation nozzles there are here. It’s not because this is meant to serve multiple families at once, though that is an aspect of it, it’s because each nozzle only dispenses a single type of beverage. That’s right. This machine houses reservoirs of individual types of drink, rather than a single base medium with multiple, customizable additive options, which isn’t to say that customization isn’t possible. For example, I can hand mix Dr. Pepper, named because of its popularity as a tonic, with…”

Joanne tuned her out and went to warm up her order as Benjamina continued to talk to no one. At least the asterisk, whatever it was, had followed her to the sodas.

When she got done assembling the order Benjamina was at the counter, smiling.

“Now you’re probably thinking that for something called fast food this certainly took a long time,” she glanced at the asterisk as she took the tray, “But that’s because all of the food in hand prepared, custom made to order.”

Still talking to the hovering asterisk she walked over to one of the tables and happily began to unwrap her order and set it out on the table before her, talking excitedly the whole time about ‘variances in temperature and composition causing differences in flavor’, occasionally holding up a fry or piece of lettuce that must have been particularly interesting. The different parts of a quarter pounder with cheese were explained in great detail.

Sometime during the show Mike came out of the freezer.

“What’s going on?” Joanne asked, tearing her attention from the crazy woman.

Mike shrugged, “Don’t know really, she makes the rounds of all the fast food joints around here. Last month Pizza Hut got her, before that I think it was KFC. I know it was the one ramen place recently. She’s weird, but she doesn’t cause much trouble. Only shows up when there’s no one else around, talks to that thing and then leaves.”

“What about,” Joanne tilted her head towards the register.

“Like I said, I’ll cover the difference and split the money with you,” seeing Jo’s look of confusion he elaborated, “Those coins she uses are Krugerrands. Hell if I know where she gets them, but I’ve got no problem with making over a month’s pay from one crazy lady.”

Joanne stared at him, “What?”

Now Mike was talking crazy too.

Smiling he opened the register and took the coins out, “They’re gold from South Africa.”

“I just can’t tell anyone about this or we get in trouble, right?” The prospect of actual gold coins did a lot to help her get over her concerns. If Mike wasn’t joking…

“I’m the manager,” Mike gave her a sly smile, “Are you going to report us to me? As long as the till balances out at the end of the shift everything’s cool.”

Benjamina talked excitedly through her whole meal, the narration fading into background noise as Joanne went about the routine of cleaning up and preparing to lock down for the night.

“You can get the door,” Mike said conversationally as he cleaned the soda machine.

“What about –” Joanne stopped, shocked by the sudden silence, “Where’d she go? Do you need to check the restrooms? Should I call someone?”

“That’s Benjamina for you,” Mike laughed, “Kind of crazy how someone so big and loud can sneak like that. Seriously, she’s just a thing. You work this shift long enough you’ll see her again. Little bit of variety keeps things interesting.”

Then he winked.

Despite Mike’s reassurances Joanne spent the rest of the shift looking over her shoulder and jumping at every sound. The night shift was okay for not having to deal with too many customers, she decided, but the customers that she did have to deal with…


End file.
